Uber vs Ola - Which do you prefer & why?

This is a discussion on Uber vs Ola - Which do you prefer & why? within Street Experiences, part of the Buckle Up category; My usage is predominantly in Ahmedabad - mostly Airport drops and picks and a few city drives. I prefer Uber ...

My usage is predominantly in Ahmedabad - mostly Airport drops and picks and a few city drives. I prefer Uber for a few reasons:

Have never had an Uber cancel on me - With Ola, I have been stranded at the last moment with the usual "no cars available" rubbish even when I had booked an early morning Airport drop the night before, and this has happened more than once. Its a pain trying to get another cab at 4 AM

Car quality and drivers have always been better in Uber vis a vis Ola in my experience. They are polite, cars are newer (and therefore well maintained), plus driving has always been sensible. I remember one Ola cabbie picked up a fight with another person at a traffic light for him stopping at a yellow !

Another thing that I have noticed is that the profile selection (Personal Vs Business) has never worked for me at Ola while it works flawlessly with Uber. I am able to separate my personal and official bills by pointing the profiles to my personal and official IDs. With Ola, even after 3 - 4 attempts, my mail address still shows as 'not verified' - effectively I end up not getting my invoices in Ola if I selected a trip as business. Very frustrating to say the least.

It was always Uber for me, but after shifting to Indirapuram, Ghaziabad I have stopped using Uber for the following reasons:

Most of the cabbies refuse to travel to Indirapuram from Delhi, they will tell me to cancel the booking and disconnect the call. Two weeks back we were without our car and were returning home late night, had to cancel/make the driver cancel 5 bookings as everyone refused to take us home leaving me and my parents stranded at 1 AM.

Quality of drivers and cars has gone down in Delhi/NCR.

I have to pay 100/- as MCD Toll Tax every time when I enter/exit Delhi. From 20th March Delhi Airport has levied a surcharge for 150/- for all commercial vehicles coming to the Airport's T1/T3 terminal to pick up passengers. It is no more a VFM proposition.

I'm indifferent and opt for whatever is available / cheaper. That's because I primarily use it for airport transfers and I stay / work in busy areas where both are available in good measure (Lokhandwala / Nariman Point in Mumbai).

Uber because Uber has been there in most cities I've travelled outside India too, and more than in India, it's been useful for me abroad. Much more cost effective, and extremely courteous drivers. I don't use the service regularly, but of the times I have used, I've had no reason to even think about using Ola. I don't even have the app on my phone.

I would have if Ola had something going for it in terms of sexiness. Haha. Bear with me here. Ola is such a beautiful sound, a beautiful greeting. It is a sexy word. It has this inherent softness. However in all marketing communication that I've come across from Ola, they've cheapened it somewhat. All of it including their UI is quite.. harsh. Eh.

reason : In my locality, I see more Ola cabs nearby than Uber cabs. Also, Ola seems to be a tad cheaper than Uber.

alternative: If there is no Ola cab nearby, I search in 'Utoo'. Positives are newer cabs (Only Nissan, Renault & Datsun cabs. So far I have travelled in Sunny, Micra & a Duster . Found all of them neatly maintained.) Negatives - A little expensive compared to Ola.

Living in Goa, my usage is limited to my visits to Mumbai and Delhi where I have used Uber and Ola. I found Uber better.
I hope Uber and Ola launch their services in Goa too. Compared to our local taxis I don't mind either Ola or Uber.

Uber all the way. Mostly because
1. Professional Service
2. They are ok with Paytm
3. Better cars
I uninstalled my ola app in a fit of rage after getting fed up with ola driver shenanigans, and swore never to use them again!

Primarily Uber : I simply cannot get Ola cabs ! Plus I do not know why, but Ola drivers have a liking for Maruti Eeco which I completely loathe.

I mean, I would rather take the UberMoto (The motorcycle cab version of Uber) than the extremely uncomfortable and shabby Eeco's. Even my wife who was once an ardous Ola fan has slowly drifted to Uber.

I voted for Other. My first choice in Bangalore is Utoo. No surge pricing, no cancellations, very courteous and professional drivers. Sedans are Nissan Sunnys and hatches are Datsun Go since they have a tie up with Nissan for their vehicles.
The con is they have less cars compared to the other 2, so have to rely on them if required.

If not Utoo below are preferences based on travel distance
For short distances: Ola
For long distances: Uber

The reason for the preference above are, Ola drivers gets paid on number of trips so there are lot of cancellations if they see that the distance/ time of travel is high. Uber drivers gets paid on distance so they donot cancel long trips.

Am surprised that almost 80% of BHPians prefer Uber! Ola is apparently the bigger player, so was expecting it to have a slight edge in this poll.

Just remembered my reason no.3 for using Ola - Bad network! Their 'book via sms' worked like a charm the one time that I used it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AkMar

However Uber has slowly ceased to be VFM (link to post), so I have reduced my usage of cabs off late.

Really? I recently did Andheri to Dadar and it cost me ~220 bucks. A black & yellow taxi would be at least as much, if not more.

Quote:

Originally Posted by smrtdvl

I feel that this sharing of 4 digit code is beneficial cos in our city the uber drivers tend to switch on the mobile meter as soon as they arrive on our doorstep even without us getting into the car but with ola if you don't provide the code the driver can't start the trip.

Many thanks for sharing! I used to always wonder about the reason behind that 4-digit code. Makes sense in a country like ours where everyone is out to scam you.

Every time I book Ola, the driver cancels in the last minute. One time I had booked Ola cab to the city bus stand to board a bus at 9PM. I had booked the cab well in advance at 7PM, although it takes 50-60 minutes for me to reach the bus stand. I was tracking the cab on their app, the driver was 5 minutes away. I called the driver to confirm if he is coming, he replied positively, suddenly the cab stopped moving, the driver cancelled the request and went away. Needless to say his phone was switched off.

I had a very bitter experience with Ola auto as well, for some reason the destination was different from what I hard marked. The destination on the auto driver's app showed a place farther away. He got into an argument and demanded the minimum fare or face consequenses, after a heated argument he left. I shot an email to Ola describing the experience. They later admitted to a technical error and apologised.

My experience with Uber has been more pleseant, so far so good. I always got the cabs on time, no fuss from the drivers to switch on the ac unlike ola guys. So from now on, it is primarily uber for me.

[*]Most of the cabbies refuse to travel to Indirapuram from Delhi, they will tell me to cancel the booking and disconnect the call. Two weeks back we were without our car and were returning home late night, had to cancel/make the driver cancel 5 bookings as everyone refused to take us home leaving me and my parents stranded at 1 AM.

Its the same for any ride that crosses into neighbouring city. For instance I face this issue everytime I book a cab from Delhi to Gurgaon or vice versa. Atleast a couple of cabbies cancel before someone agrees to go. And this has always been in daytime during off-peak traffic. I am sure the situation will become much worse if I were to travel during peak office hours or at nights.